


The Worst Friend

by GlowAmber



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Grief/Mourning, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 08:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlowAmber/pseuds/GlowAmber
Summary: Quirianna verse. Rapunzel tries to fix her mistakes, little by little.





	The Worst Friend

"Varian?"

The village was muddy and grey, thick black spikes jutting up through carts and houses and looming over her. Her reflection peered back at her from one as she passed too close to it, bags under her too wide eyes, mouth drawn in a sharp frown, and Rapunzel pulled away with a shudder.

She brought her hands up to either side of her face, cupped, and called again. "Varian?" 

Her voice travelled too far in the quiet of Old Corona for her liking. Not even birds scavenged the destroyed fields. She had wearily helped her mother do a headcount after her parents had returned home, and everyone was accounted for.

Everyone but--

"Varian?!"

And his father.

She felt the chill down her spine and tried to keep her chin up, but there was something gnawing in her belly. His pinched desperate expression, the break in his voice as he pleaded with her; it was a memory she couldn't shake. 

Part of her wanted to run back to the road behind her, Eugene and Cassandra would be waiting there. Open arms, ready to support her in her time of weakness… 

There was a lump in her throat when she tried to call his name again, and it came out a whimper instead. 

The last place to search was in front of her, looking every bit as dark as the rest of the village. It didn't look like it was capable of supporting life anymore, and she wondered what she would find in it's remains.

The door pushed open too easily, and she let out a breath after a moment, unaware she'd been holding it and waiting for a trap to trigger. With the hallway yawning so wide, so empty, around her… Rapunzel clicked her jaw shut, almost afraid to call for him again, here.

Every step just whispered she didn't belong, every creak in the floor felt like an accusation. Things sat untouched, staring at her, and she felt… small. Distant memories of trying to slip into Gothel's room welled up from the depths she'd tried to bury them in, and like before, she pressed on into Varian's lab. Foolishly? Bravely? 

She wasn't sure anymore.

Not until she saw the jutting orange-gold crystal peering around the edge of the stairwell. It nearly scraped the ceiling, wider than any of the black rocks she'd seen so far, and with a few trapped in it's grip.

And something else hung frozen, too.

"... Quirin."

It sounded like a sob. This was what he had meant? His father had needed help and she stared in horror, upwards, unsure of what she could have done to save him. She'd read once about a rock like this, that wasn't really a rock, but tree sap that hardened over time and trapped bugs and plants within it.

Amber. 

Was Quirin going to be stuck like this, forever? 

Her eyes lowered, out of guilt or shame or both, she wasn't sure, and she recoiled as if she'd been smacked. 

At the foot of his father's prison, Varian lay in a ball. He still wore his winter coat, a small blessing for the chill down here, but she felt her chest go tight because it meant he hadn't moved in days.

"Varian?"

The first step is painful, the second feels like glass beneath her feet, and then she doesn't feel the rest-- she runs. She runs and she only stops when she is bent down to reach for him, fingers grazing his shoulder. "Varian!"

She shouldn't be surprised he jerks from under her touch, small and boney. "Come to gloat?" He spits the words out like venom, and they find their mark too easily. 

"No, no.. I… I came to help…" 

A little too late. The voice in her head sounds like Gothel's, mocking and loving and relentless.

"Leave me alone. I .. I don't want you here. I'll save him myself! I don't need you!" He pushes himself up, hissing and snarling, the whites of his eyes and his teeth catching her off guard. There's the coward's way out. She could leave now, she could run and pretend this hasn't happened. She can hide.

Rapunzel instead looks at the amber and she can feel his outrage when she presses her palm against it. How dare she. How could she.

The words are welling up and she speaks before he can, pushing all of her emotions into words.

"I'm sorry."

Varian scrambles to his feet, and she thinks for a moment he's going to shove her. His hands clench, his face is pale and flushed, and he yells so hard that she flinches. "Sorry?? You're sorry? I came to you for help! My dad needed you, I needed you! And you threw me out in a snowstorm!"

His next shot hits the mark, "You were supposed to be my friend!!"

Friend.

"I… I know…" She feels weak in the face of his justified fury, "... I haven't been a very good one… I haven't been a very good Queen, either."

There are excuses on the tip of her tongue. She did what she had to, the kingdom was at stake, she couldn't leave Corona without a leader!

He wipes his face of tears, like he's trying to hide how deep the pain goes, and she swallows them down and stares up at his father. Varian spent days here, grieving him. Mourning him. She doesn't know if she can save him, but they're both her citizens.

"I should have stopped them," she admits, and then, "... What happened?"

Rapunzel means it honestly, she wants to know so she can figure out how to fix it. She doesn't know what to do when Varian's face crumples and he flinches back, arms wrapped around his middle.

She recognizes guilt, she recognizes shame, and her heart breaks piece by piece as he babbles

"It was an accident! I didn't mean to! I.. it's not my fault!" 

Rapunzel puts her hand back on his shoulder and when his hands move to shield his face, like he can hide that he's crying, she wraps arms around him in the tightest hug she can manage.

"I just… I just wanted to make him proud! And all I do is mess things up, all I do is make it WORSE, and now.. now!" His breath catches and she feels him seize in her embrace. 

She doesn't have the words. 

"We'll fix this, okay? Together. I …" Rapunzel stops, sharply, and then gently tries to pull him away. "We'll save him."

She doesn't want to break any more promises, she doesn't want to make any that she isn't sure she can keep. 

For now, all she can do is try.


End file.
